He began by highlighting his investigation-through-poetry approach, mentioning his plan for a possible collection of Xuanji’s poetry, and his visit to the prison as an integrated part of it, though he refrained from saying anything about the yellow silk underrobe and the peony poem. The visit to the prison confirmed, among other things, Wei being the ‘true-hearted lover’ in the poem ‘To a Girl in the Neighborhood.’ From that, he came up with the hypothesis that Xuanji’s motive in the murder case was insane jealousy, as was understandable for a woman devastated by too many betrayals in her life. Wei’s amorous tryst with Ning became the last straw for Xuanji, and in a murderous breakdown, she savagely beat the maid to death. And because of it, Wei later turned into an accomplice in the backyard burial. Judge Dee did not go into detail about the scenario, leaving it largely blank as in a traditional Chinese landscape painting for the viewer’s imagination. Minister Wu should be able to get most of it. Judge Dee merely added that after his talk with her in the prison, Xuanji seemed to have acquiesced with his analysis.

As for Wei’s death, Judge Dee did not think it was very important to Minister Wu or Mayor Pei. So he touched on a couple of related hypothetical points in passing: Wei’s wearing the black fox spirit costume struck terror into the neighborhood, so he was able to visit Xuanji at night without worrying about being seen by the neighbors, and Xuanji’s mentioning him as an impossible womanizer who paid the price in the end. Judge Dee did not even mention the death of the flower girl, Zhang. It could have been unrelated to the Xuanji case. Nothing but a coincidence. And he did not think Mayor Pei would have mentioned the killing near the temple in connection, which would not be a credit to the mayor.

‘Of course, there may be some other details not yet covered in the scenario about the Xuanji case. It is such a complicated, sensational case, and it’s definitely in the interests of the Great Tang Empire for us to have a speedy and acceptable conclusion, as you have said to me. Being so pressed for time, however, I can give you only a case report based on my investigation done during the last three days. Tomorrow morning, I have to leave for the new post entrusted to me by Her Majesty, as you know.’

Putting down the brush pen, he thought he’d better say something more, but he found himself dried up like the dried ink stone staring up at him, black, cold, hard.

The black tea leaves rising and sinking suspiciously in the cup, he took another sip of the lukewarm tea. And he noted a thin cracked line cutting across the surface of the ink stone, which could soon become too damaged for use.